Marin officials say state budget is a good start

Flush with optimism from California's resurgent economy, lawmakers approved a $156.4 billion state budget that expands preschool for children from poor families, increases welfare payments, and provides funding for building the nation's first bullet train and a Golden Gate Bridge suicide net.

Denis Mulligan, the bridge's general manager, said the budget provides $7 million from the Mental Health Services Act, Proposition 63 passed in 2004, for the suicide barrier.

Dietrich Stroeh of Novato, a Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District director, said, "We were actually hoping for more money, but if that's all we can get that is all we can get. Every little bit helps. We may have to dip into our reserves to make up the difference." It has been estimated the project will cost $66 million.

Stroeh's reaction to the budget was shared by several Marin County officials Monday. They said it was a move in the right direction, but it wouldn't significantly ease the financial pressure on their constituents.

The state's financial turnaround has allowed the Democratic-led Legislature, with the blessing of Gov. Jerry Brown, to spend more freely just a few years after the recession prompted deep cuts to government services. And if tax receipts outpace expectations, the budget could send even more money to schools, public universities and local governments.

Lawmakers also are addressing more of California's lingering financial problems, stockpiling cash in a rainy-day fund and chipping away at pension costs.

The spending plan — which includes a $108 billion general fund, $7.3 billion larger than last year's — now goes to Brown, who has until the end of the month to sign it. He can still veto items he dislikes.

Some programs for California's poor are being boosted. Beginning next April, welfare payments for a family of three in such high-cost counties as Los Angeles would increase to $704 per month, up from $670.

Over the next few years, preschool enrollment is expected to increase by 43,000 4-year-olds from low-income families. There's also more money for subsidized child care. And the budget sets aside $300 million to be spent over the next two years to allow in-home caregivers to receive overtime.

Larry Meredith, director of Marin County's Department of Health and Human Services, said, "Although the adjustments are always helpful and appreciated, they are not going to make a significant difference in confronting the escalating costs. In Marin, our costs for rent, food and child care are just going through the roof."

Meredith said the rising cost of rental housing in Marin in particular is taking a toll on low-income residents and people living on a fixed income.

Despite the budget's increasing size, some cuts remain in place. Most notably, doctors who participate in Medi-Cal will continue receiving reduced payments even as hundreds of thousands of new patients enroll in the state's public health care program. Brown's resistance to increasing the payments disappointed lawmakers from both sides of the aisle, who fear fewer doctors will agree to care for Medi-Cal patients.

Madeline Kellner, executive director of Marin's In-Home Supportive Services public authority agency, said in-home support workers in Marin will benefit from the state money allocated for overtime pay. Kellner said a change in federal law now mandates that in-home support workers be paid overtime if they work more than 40 hours per week. Kellner said Gov. Brown's initial reaction to this change in the law was to propose limiting in-home support workers to working 40 hours per week.

"Which wasn't very practical," Kellner said. She also noted that the state reduced allocations for in-home support worker pay by 8 percent last year and is only restoring 1 percent of that takeaway in the new budget.

In a prepared statement, Assemblyman Marc Levine, D-San Rafael, said, "This budget is a responsible spending plan that pays down the wall of debt and increases funding for K-12 and higher education and other critical public services."

Marin Superintendent of Schools Mary Jane Burke said, "Our state is moving in a more positive direction," by beginning to invest again in the public schools. She added, however, that the state still owes school districts millions of dollars that it diverted to other needs during the Great Recession.

"The bottom line is the schools will not be funded at the levels there were at in 2007 and 2009 for several more years," Burke said.

Burke and other education administrators are also unhappy with a new policy included in the budget-related bills that would limit how much money school districts can keep in their reserve accounts. Administration officials say the schools won't need to stockpile as much cash because the state will have its own rainy-day fund, but angry district officials called the proposal a ploy by the powerful teachers union to make more money available while negotiating contracts.

Burke said that Gov. Brown's previous changes in school funding have been aimed at moving decision-making to the local level.

"Now to put a cap on how much money you can have in reserves for economic uncertainly is a decision in the wrong direction," she said.

Long-term costs for public employee retirements and overdue maintenance continue to weigh on state finances, and the budget starts tackling the $74 billion shortfall in the teacher pension fund. Under the plan, schools, teachers and the state will contribute more money to the fund in an attempt to close the gap over the next three decades.

Assemblyman Levine said, "The budget sets in place a plan of shared responsibility to make the teacher's retirement system solvent. Solvency of the State Teachers Retirement Fund makes sure that the money is there when it is needed and protects classroom spending."

The budget also deposits $1.6 billion into a reserve fund, a down payment on the state's effort to create a cushion for future economic downturns. Voters will have an opportunity in November to approve a constitutional amendment that would set aside money in the fund every year and help pay off the state's debt and long-term costs.

The budget marks lawmakers' first major effort to combat global warming with revenue from the state cap-and-trade program, which charges fees on polluters when their carbon emissions exceed set limits.

Over the next several years, billions of dollars from those funds could flow to affordable housing, mass transit and environmental programs in a broad effort to get Californians to drive less and consume less energy.

A quarter of the money will be used for building the $68 billion bullet train, a decision that may draw legal challenges from groups that oppose the project and view it as an improper use of cap-and-trade revenue.

"You're enacting policies to make California unnecessarily expensive, drive people into poverty and then propose new government programs to subsidize their life in poverty," Huff said.

A separate budget-related bill, also approved Sunday, would remove the ban on drug felons receiving food stamps and welfare payments. Democrats say the measure would help former inmates reintegrate into society, but Republicans were critical.

"In what universe does it make sense to give cash benefit cards to drug users?" Huff said.

But Mike Daly, Marin County's chief probation officer, said, "There are some basic things that people need in order to even start on any kind of rehabilitation: you need shelter and you need food. Without those it's pretty easy to fall back into your old ways."

Los Angeles Times contributed to this report. Distributed by MCT Direct.